Five firefighters among dozen-plus patients burned in Camp Fire

Fire personnel search for fire victims in the rubble of the Shelter Cove Apartments in aftermath of Camp Fire in Paradise, Calif. on Tuesday, November 13, 2018.

Photo: Scott Strazzante / The Chronicle

As the number of dead and missing continues to rise one week after the Camp Fire destroyed the town of Paradise, many residents — as well as five firefighters — are recovering from severe burns or other injuries.

More than a dozen patients were treated at Northern California burn centers in the days after the Nov. 8 fire leveled Paradise and surrounding Butte County communities. As of Thursday, the burn center at UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento was treating 10 patients with injuries sustained in the fire. Eight of them were in fair condition, one was in serious condition and one person was critical, said Charlie Casey, a hospital spokesman.

One patient was listed as stable at Bothin Burn Center at St. Francis Memorial in San Francisco, another major Northern California burn center.

Five firefighters battling the inferno were injured as flames spread uncontrolled though Paradise. In the scramble to escape, many residents abandoned everything they had, including prescription medication and other vital items.

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Three of the injured firefighters were taken to UC Davis Medical Center, said Chief Scott McLean, a spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Two of the firefighters were released and one is still being treated, he said. That firefighter’s condition was not immediately available.

Two more firefighters were taken to Enloe Medical Center in Chico, where they were treated and later released. Cal Fire did not say where the firefighters were injured, and officials did not describe the circumstances of how they were injured.

Rick Rios, 69, survived the fire with severe burns on his hands. His wife, Lolene, 58, was trapped in their home with five dogs when the blaze hit. Rick Rios is being treated at UC Davis Medical Center and faces a long road to recovery. He will likely need skin grafts, his daughter, Maria Rios, told The Chronicle.

Firefighters pulled him off of his roof and rushed him to the hospital in Chico, where he was taken by a Life Flight helicopter to the Sacramento burn center.

Enloe Medical Center — the only Level II trauma center between Sacramento and Redding — saw a spike in patients starting on the morning of the fire. Not only did medical staff need to treat fire victims, but the hospital also took in 49 patients from Feather River Hospital in Paradise, which was forced to evacuate that morning.

“The day of the fire was one of the busiest days in the 105-year history of our emergency department,” said Nicole Johansson, a spokeswoman for the hospital.

Enloe employees have been working extra shifts and the hospital credentialed the staff of Feather River Hospital to help meet the surge of patients, Johansson said. A clinic also opened at Enloe to allow patients to refill prescriptions they may have lost when fleeing the fire.

Evan Sernoffsky is a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle specializing in criminal justice, crime and breaking news. He’s covered some of the biggest Bay Area news stories in recent memory, including wildfires, mass shootings and criminal justice reform efforts in San Francisco. He has given a voice to victims in some of the region’s biggest tragedies, carefully putting himself in challenging situations to make sure their stories are told. He works out of San Francisco’s Hall of Justice where he keeps watch on the city’s courts and hits the streets to expose the darker side of a city undergoing rapid change. He moved to the Bay Area from Oregon where he grew up and worked as a journalist for several years.